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[IDEA] A small gang warfare mechanic: Player-created incursions
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DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#1 - 2011-10-11 15:53:37 UTC
Introduction
For a long time, small gangs have had limited ability to influence large scale political shifts. This diminishes the viability of this type of warfare and reduces the type of game play, which is unfortunate. With the right objectives and incentive, I believe this can be improved.

Definition
For the purpose of this idea, I will use the following definition:
- small gang warfare: warfare conducted by a gang of between 5 and 20 characters in sub-capital ships.
- raiding gang: non-sov holder, invading sov space
- defender gang: sov holder, defending sov space

The problem
With the large amount of hit points that station services, sovereignty structures and POS modules have, small gangs will struggle to be effective in disrupting / destroying those. Personally, I do believe this is acceptable, and that type of warfare should remain in the realm of big fleet combat.

What is lacking however is small scale objectives that such a gang can accomplish. Some will argue that small gangs can harass ratters, but the reality is different. One way to harass ratters is by destroying their ships, but chances of accomplishing this is actually quite small. The second way is to prevent them from ratting by your continued presence. However, this tactic actually rewards inactivity instead of activity, does not result in fun for either party and only lasts for as long as the raiding gang is willing to stay put. As soon as they leave, the only thing they have accomplished is wasting everybody's time.

Solution: player-created incursions
The core idea is that the game should incentivise people to defend their space. In the case of small gang warfare, people shouldn't fear loosing sovereignty or structures, but they should feel some effect that lasts beyond the time the eaiding gang is in system. My proposal would be to reduce the ratting value of a system along somewhat similar lines of Sansha Incursions.

Player incursion game mechanic
When a raiding party visits a ratting system, they would anchor a small module. Let's for now can it a Player Incursion Device (PID). A PID can be anchored anywhere in system but at least an X amount of space away from any celestial. This prevents a POS from ever being able to support a raiding party. It also makes docking games or gate games impossible. The module would be a bit like an SBU, but a lot smaller to carry (so it can fit a standard combat vessels hold) and cheaper, but also easier to kill. This module would also take a lot shorter to anchor and unanchor.

As soon as a PID is anchored in space, a warpable beacon becomes available to everybody in space. When it is anchored, the PID can be onlined, which again is much shorter then an SBU. As soon as the PID is online, the PID can start to negatively effect space. The rats slowly loose value, and the effectiveness (tank / damage) of all player ships (both raiding and defending) decreases.

The speed at which the changes occur depends on the time the raiding party has ships on grid within 100km of the PID. When there are no raiding ships on grid, nothing changes. Also, cloaked ships or even ships that can cloak but aren't do not count towards this number. There is also a maximum number of ships that effect the speed, so that bringing bigger gangs does no speed up the process anymore. (It could even be conceivable to have different level PIDs for different levels of effectiveness and other parameters). After the PID has reached its maximum effectiveness, it can be off-lined and unanchored again. After this has happened, they can move on, but leave the negative effects in that system in place.

The defending party can stop the negative effects from occurring by chasing the raiding party away from the PID and / or destroying it. If they do not destroy the PID before it gets offlined, the negative effect can be overcome by ratting for strongly reduced Isk or by a long and slow time out.

Balancing
This is quite a complicated mechanic, but it does have recognizable features from both the current sov system and the new Sansha incursions. The balancing of this will be quite tough though.

The general concept is that it should promote small gang warfare where sov holders actually have a reason to undock and fight an invading gang instead of just waiting it out, without it becoming an easy way to grief people for raiding parties. This means that a lot of things need to be right.
- price, size and EHP for PID
- timers for anchor / unanchor and online / offline of PID
- timer for 0 effect to max effect and level of negative effect for defenders
- max distance from PID for defenders
- restrictions on ships counting towards effect
- etc.

None of this is set in stone, none of this should favor raider or defender too much. The central point is that it should reward raiders for actually putting themselves in harms way (so no AFK cloaker) while rewarding defenders for responding quickly and actually coming out fighting.

One aspect of this that some people might have trouble with is the fact that it could lead to 'time zone harassment', where raiders only visit defender systems when they have low activity. I personally this that this shouldn't be a problem, because this game is a 24/7 game, and people just using a system part-time should be incentivised to have round-the-clock coverage. People will not loose sov, so the effect, while noticable, it not catastrophic.

Conclusion
Player-created incurions could be a mechanic to promote PVP activity or (when defenders lack the will or ability to undock and defend) at least give raiders meaningful objectives they can accomplish through small gang warfare, something that is currently greatly lacking.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#2 - 2011-10-11 15:55:45 UTC
(damn text length restrictions)

NOTE: This is a report of a post I made on the old forums, which can still be found here:
- http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1489215
- http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1489215-0

I reposted it because I think it deserves attention and more discussion, although I regret that some of the old discussion will be lost this way.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Jack Carrigan
Order of the Shadow
#3 - 2011-10-11 17:21:49 UTC
This idea sounds like it could be an interesting one.

However, it would just drive the carebears into perpetual hibernation or unsubbing because they wouldn't be able to do anything as the thought of PvP to them is completely repugnant.

I am the One who exists in Shadow. I am the Devil your parents warned you about.

||CEO: Order of the Shadow||Executor: The Revenant Order||Creator: Bowhead||
Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#4 - 2011-10-11 17:36:00 UTC
Also it wouldnt work in blob warfare.

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#5 - 2011-10-11 19:47:35 UTC

In my opinion, the idea is awesome. It incentivizes the locals to fend off a gang or provides consequences for not defending their space.

Living in nullsec is all about risk vs reward. The truth is, most nullsec PvE activities provide significant rewards and very little added risk. Obey a few principles, read the intel channel, watch local, and the chances of losing your ship is less likely than in empire.

This mechanic doesn't force carebears to PvP, but rather offers an opposing force the tools to put pressure on them. Compared to AFK cloakers, this should sound like heaven!!! Its an economic disruption tool that center's around active players, where the locals have a clear target they need to defend against, and reasonable consequences for not defending their space.

I think the base idea is excellent, although I have several questions to help refine it:

Does/can the mechanic exist to monitor ships on grid (let alone ships with a cloak fitted), or should the onlining process be tied into another mechanic such as hacking or a timer?

How should this affect mining, PI, Drones, Anomalies, and Signatures?

What is a reasonable effect dissipation time (should it last only a few hours, or days)?

How can this be abused?

Draconia Belladonna
Bellator derelicta
#6 - 2011-10-11 19:51:04 UTC
Nova Fox wrote:
Also it wouldnt work in blob warfare.

That's the point. Blobs are big fleets. As a member of a small corp I like the idea of creating this game mechanic to boost small fleets. I would change a few things though.

1) Don't nerf weapons and defense. Instead have the PID drop ratting bounties and also nerf mining lasers. This would hurt a large corporation/alliance's income the most, and thus create the biggest incentive to respond.

CheifTech wrote:
Also, cloaked ships or even ships that can cloak but aren't do not count towards this number. There is also a maximum number of ships that effect the speed, so that bringing bigger gangs does no speed up the process anymore. (It could even be conceivable to have different level PIDs for different levels of effectiveness and other parameters). After the PID has reached its maximum effectiveness, it can be off-lined and unanchored again. After this has happened, they can move on, but leave the negative effects in that system in place.

2) You say ships that can cloak but aren't cloaked do not count. Small guerrilla fleets often fit cloaking devices to help against larger fleets. Let's just make it so that if a ship is cloaked it doesn't count. I don't want to be penalized for taking certain precautions in my fitting.

3) If the PID online timer reaches maximum then a cyno jamming effect is in play for a certain amount of time (I'm thinking 24 hours or until the next DT) that way big alliances cannot simply hot drop a capital blob on the small fleet.
Jory Stormborn
Custodes Fati
#7 - 2011-10-11 20:03:00 UTC
I really like this idea. It really adds another layer to PvP.

I also think that players doing this should be flagged and people trying to fend it off should also be flagged so that you don't lose sec status over it. It's like another version on Faciton Warfare.
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#8 - 2011-10-12 15:47:38 UTC
Jack Carrigan wrote:
This idea sounds like it could be an interesting one.

However, it would just drive the carebears into perpetual hibernation or unsubbing because they wouldn't be able to do anything as the thought of PvP to them is completely repugnant.

I think carebears in 0.0 that refuse to PVP are in the wrong place. If they unsub over this, I really can't and don't want to solve that, because it means they don't care about the game. Also, there are currently already very effective ways to grief these types, so I doubt this would come as a shock.

Gizznitt Malikite wrote:

I think the base idea is excellent, although I have several questions to help refine it:
1) Does/can the mechanic exist to monitor ships on grid (let alone ships with a cloak fitted), or should the onlining process be tied into another mechanic such as hacking or a timer?

2) How should this affect mining, PI, Drones, Anomalies, and Signatures?

3) What is a reasonable effect dissipation time (should it last only a few hours, or days)?

4) How can this be abused?


1) This mechanic should already exist for 80% for POS mods, since they target stuff on grid automatically, and some only have only effect. Only new thing would be detecting the cloak fitted.

2) I think most PVE activity in space involves shooting red crosses (or in case of mining, having to tank them). Having rats be stronger by weakening the player ships should be enough, esp. coupled with the lower bounties. I don't think PI should be effected, because it is supposed to get people who are actually online to undock, not to grief people who might have started PI a day ago and only plan to get back to it the next day. Possibly the number of anomalies spawned should decrease as well, although that might be a bit too harsh.

3) I'd say the effect without player intervention should disappear in 24 hours, and with serious player intervention (i.e. ratting) should not last more then 2-3 hours. These are just starting values and should be tweaked through testing and experience.

4) I think the biggest risk is the following: You have a titan in bridge range of a number of ratting systems with a big fleet sitting on it. You have a small group of 2 tacklers (inties, dictors) and one cyno ship for each of these systems, and they anchor a PID and wait. Whenever and where ever a defense fleet attacks the raiders, the raiders can bridge in the big fleet, and what is supposed to be a small gang mechanic turns into a lame hot drop gank fest. I am afraid that I don't know of any design that could prevent this, since the basic problem is in the riskless nature of titan bridging, and as long as that mechanic stays the same, hot dropping will often ruin opportunities for good fights. The only defense you have against it is good intel or cyno jammers, but it basically would create inactivity again. I'm sure there'll be other gaps as well that I'm missing.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Akara Ito
Phalanx Solutions
#9 - 2011-10-12 15:55:26 UTC
The basic idea might be nice but why wouldnt a sov holding ally say **** it and just send 200 people to destroy the PID ?
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#10 - 2011-10-12 16:16:36 UTC  |  Edited by: DaDutchDude
Draconia Belladonna wrote:
As a member of a small corp I like the idea of creating this game mechanic to boost small fleets. I would change a few things though.

1) Don't nerf weapons and defense. Instead have the PID drop ratting bounties and also nerf mining lasers. This would hurt a large corporation/alliance's income the most, and thus create the biggest incentive to respond.

Quote:
Also, cloaked ships or even ships that can cloak but aren't do not count towards this number. There is also a maximum number of ships that effect the speed, so that bringing bigger gangs does no speed up the process anymore. (It could even be conceivable to have different level PIDs for different levels of effectiveness and other parameters). After the PID has reached its maximum effectiveness, it can be off-lined and unanchored again. After this has happened, they can move on, but leave the negative effects in that system in place.

2) You say ships that can cloak but aren't cloaked do not count. Small guerrilla fleets often fit cloaking devices to help against larger fleets. Let's just make it so that if a ship is cloaked it doesn't count. I don't want to be penalized for taking certain precautions in my fitting.

3) If the PID online timer reaches maximum then a cyno jamming effect is in play for a certain amount of time (I'm thinking 24 hours or until the next DT) that way big alliances cannot simply hot drop a capital blob on the small fleet.


1) I don't think just nerfing income would be enough. Making NPC ships stronger compared to player ships forces players to adopt other behavior to beat them. Not only does this create an incentive for players to come fight, it also creates an incentive to work together to clear negative effects, since a solo ratting ship won't be able to cope anymore. As an extra bonus, this would spell death to ratting bots.

2) I don't like the cloak restriction myself, but currently I see too many ways to exploit this mechanic with cloakies that never really intend to fight but only to grief. I want both raiders and defenders to be forced to take risks. Possibly with more tweaks to the mechanics, there is a more elegant way to remove the cloaky grief factor, so if you have good suggestions, I'd love to hear them, but balance in risk is key: this should not be low risk for either party.

3) I would love to have a way to stop people from titan bridging onto either raiding or defending groups, but that problem is more with titan bridge mechanics and shouldn't be artificially fixed in this mechanic. The consequences for using it in unintended ways would just be too big. Imagine anchoring a PID just after you have cyno'ed in, preventing a counter-drop. Until titan bridging get fixed, lame hot drop ganking that ruins actual fighting will remain a fixture, but I think that is a discussion for a whole different topic. On a related note however, I have no problem with people dropping capitals on these gangs, either as defenders or raiders, because with the new changes to capitals, they actually risk a lot, and if the other party can escalate fast enough, results in juicy capital losses, which is good.

Akara Ito wrote:
The basic idea might be nice but why wouldnt a sov holding ally say **** it and just send 200 people to destroy the PID ?

Nothing would prevent that, but I doubt even the largest power blocks will have 200 people sitting ready in a fleet to defend against PIDs 24/7. There will have to be a good balance in timer length for onlining that makes it possible for locals to respond, but very hard for region wide response fleets to blob up and destroy a PID with ease. This mechanic does not prevent blobbing, but it would require very good organization and effort of defenders to pull it off. And actually, I would be okay with that, and such effort should be rewarded by winning. However, if response fleets become predictable, it is inevitable that raiders will adapt and pull off some nice wins as well.

Whatever works that gets people in space and fighting, and both sides having opportunities to win, that makes me happy, even if that means people will sometimes successfully blob instead of using small gangs.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#11 - 2011-10-12 16:31:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Cearain
I like this idea. Perhaps the pids could be ship size restricted so caps couldn't get in there. Perhaps even similar size restrictions as fw plexes. CCP said they were looking for mechanics that would make cruisers useful ships.

It would seem to give small gang pvpers something to do to harass the enemy.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#12 - 2011-10-12 18:26:30 UTC

I had an idea to potentially cirumvent the ships with cloaks check...

Have the PID target the ships that "count" for onlining.

1.) The max number of ships that count toward onlining the PID are determined by the PID's max number of targets.
2.) The proximity to count in the onlining processes is determined by the PID's targetting range.
3.) Targetted ships can't cloak.

Personally, I think one of the major "risks" to the raiding group should be the loss of the PID. Leaving its EHP relatively small to its price.
Akara Ito
Phalanx Solutions
#13 - 2011-10-12 20:40:09 UTC
DaDutchDude wrote:
Draconia Belladonna wrote:

[quote=Akara Ito]The basic idea might be nice but why wouldnt a sov holding ally say **** it and just send 200 people to destroy the PID ?

Nothing would prevent that, but I doubt even the largest power blocks will have 200 people sitting ready in a fleet to defend against PIDs 24/7. There will have to be a good balance in timer length for onlining that makes it possible for locals to respond, but very hard for region wide response fleets to blob up and destroy a PID with ease. This mechanic does not prevent blobbing, but it would require very good organization and effort of defenders to pull it off. And actually, I would be okay with that, and such effort should be rewarded by winning. However, if response fleets become predictable, it is inevitable that raiders will adapt and pull off some nice wins as well.

Whatever works that gets people in space and fighting, and both sides having opportunities to win, that makes me happy, even if that means people will sometimes successfully blob instead of using small gangs.


You dont need a fleet 24/7 to **** with this.
with the argument that blocks cant send large fleets 24/7 you could just go roam without the PID thing and get good fights.
You even said it yourself you cant prevent blobbing and you're ok with that.
I dont really see the effect then.
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#14 - 2011-10-12 23:05:52 UTC  |  Edited by: DaDutchDude
Gizznitt Malikite wrote:

I had an idea to potentially cirumvent the ships with cloaks check...

Have the PID target the ships that "count" for onlining.

1.) The max number of ships that count toward onlining the PID are determined by the PID's max number of targets.
2.) The proximity to count in the onlining processes is determined by the PID's targetting range.
3.) Targetted ships can't cloak.

Personally, I think one of the major "risks" to the raiding group should be the loss of the PID. Leaving its EHP relatively small to its price.

I like your solution to the cloaking issue, it's quite elegant. However, I don't agree the major risk for the raiders should be the price of the PID. I think it should be the loss of their ship. I have long ago lost the belief that price is actually a good balance mechanism in this game for all sorts of reasons. Yes, I think the PID should be relatively light on EHP, but I don't think it should be expensive at all. The point is not destroying a structure, the point is to destroy ships.

Akara Ito wrote:
You dont need a fleet 24/7 to **** with this.
with the argument that blocks cant send large fleets 24/7 you could just go roam without the PID thing and get good fights.
You even said it yourself you cant prevent blobbing and you're ok with that.
I dont really see the effect then.

I'm not sure if you have properly read the idea. The point is that you have to destroy the PID while it is onlining, so the defenders only have a small window to stop the raiders. After the raiders have successfully onlined the PID, they can remove it and move on while the negative effect stays in place. This forces defenders to quickly respond or loose their window of opportunity. And it is that small window which makes it different from current mechanics like POS bashing or station / sov structure shooting that usually result in blob warfare, where you know timers well in advance and can plan a response fleet accordingly.

A second thing that makes this different is that the fights will be at the PID in space. When you roam, most fights take place on gates or at stations, which really change the dynamic of the fight. When fighting on a gate, the party jumping into the other group is at a big disadvantage, because the group they jump into can already set up at correct ranges. When fighting on a station, the side who can dock controls the fight against the party who cannot dock. When you fight in the middle of space, these dynamics go out the window.

A third difference is the psychology behind it. When you roam some sov holder space, usually people will dock up and then take ages to set up a fleet that (if they are competent) can easily beat the raiders, or they won't undock at all. Whichever outcome, it usually means no fight will occur. Only rarely will people undock in uncertainty of the outcome, because as it stands, there really isn't a reason they should undock when they might face a loss of ships. With this new mechanic, there is a very clear reason to undock or suffer the consequences.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Akara Ito
Phalanx Solutions
#15 - 2011-10-13 00:20:26 UTC
If the time to online those things is short enough to use timezones, mono timezone alliances will suffer a lot while really large blocks wont have much of a problem.
Especially Alliances like evoke or our russian friends will have a lot of trouble with this while for example gonswarm wouldnt really care because we are large enough to cover basicly every tz.

Oh and 1 more problem, what prevents a large alliance to abuse that stuff and use those things on a large scale while surpressing defending fleets for just 1 or 2 hours ?

You move in once with 1 large fleet and a couple of small gangs and use your large fleet to camp the enemies staging while you drop these things all over the place. You could stop/nerf pve for a hostile alliance for several days with just a single op.
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#16 - 2011-10-13 02:38:08 UTC
Akara Ito wrote:
If the time to online those things is short enough to use timezones, mono timezone alliances will suffer a lot while really large blocks wont have much of a problem.

Especially Alliances like evoke or our russian friends will have a lot of trouble with this while for example gonswarm wouldnt really care because we are large enough to cover basicly every tz.


I don't know exactly what time frame DaDutchDude has in mind, but I was imaging an anchoring + online time on the order of 10-30 minutes (depending on the severity of the incursion effects). Something that forces the locals to act, and act quickly (and thereby inherently reducing the blob factor).

Could these be used to grief the locals from their off-times... sure.... but the suggested effects lasts on the order of a day, and they can rat to shorten that time to a few hours... Big alliances like Evoke or the Russians have enough carebears (& bots Lol) to rat away most of the effects before most of the alliance logs in. I really think the primary use of this will be to encourage the locals to come out of hiding and fight, not to grief afk landlords.

Akara Ito wrote:

Oh and 1 more problem, what prevents a large alliance to abuse that stuff and use those things on a large scale while surpressing defending fleets for just 1 or 2 hours ?

You move in once with 1 large fleet and a couple of small gangs and use your large fleet to camp the enemies staging while you drop these things all over the place. You could stop/nerf pve for a hostile alliance for several days with just a single op.


First off, it sounds like it would last about a day, not several days. Secondly, so what... The idea of a big alliance sending out several small gangs to deploy these creates awesome targets for guerrilla warfare. Finally, these things wont require a large fleet to destroy.... I'd imagine they'd have the EHP of a mobile small or medium warp disruptor.

Truthfully though, this could have some interesting effects in sov warfare battles.... Fleets would do less damage, but have lower resists... I'm pretty sure incursion effects don't alter the stats of structures (like Stations & POSs), so it might give a small advantage to the defenders.
DaDutchDude
Some Random Corporation
#17 - 2011-10-14 12:27:05 UTC  |  Edited by: DaDutchDude
Akara Ito wrote:
If the time to online those things is short enough to use timezones, mono timezone alliances will suffer a lot while really large blocks wont have much of a problem.
Especially Alliances like evoke or our russian friends will have a lot of trouble with this while for example gonswarm wouldnt really care because we are large enough to cover basicly every tz.

I really think that mono-tz empires are doing it wrong. I do believe it's fair that sov shouldn't be won or lost without people being able to select a TZ to duke it out in, but I find it a great fallacy that currently large pieces of space are not or barely being used or defended for the majority of the time, leaving vast wastelands of 0.0 space becoming extremely lacking in content. If this mechanic makes these alliances deal with the reality of the 23.5/7 nature of this game, I'm all for it.

I would probably aim for an anchoring time of 5 minutes and an onlining time of 15. This should make it feasible for locals to form up a 5 to 20 man defense fleet, and make it harder to get a 50+ man fleet together and on site. Times might still need tweaking though.

Quote:
Oh and 1 more problem, what prevents a large alliance to abuse that stuff and use those things on a large scale while surpressing defending fleets for just 1 or 2 hours ?

You move in once with 1 large fleet and a couple of small gangs and use your large fleet to camp the enemies staging while you drop these things all over the place. You could stop/nerf pve for a hostile alliance for several days with just a single op.

Yes, this would allow you to harress alliances with big fleets as well. I don't see what is wrong with that though. I actually think it would be a much more fun way of conquering space, because it is very light on structure shooting and promotes shooting ships.

It is also something a sov holding alliance should be able to deal with. First, you can do the same in return to the raiders space. Second, the negative effect of the PID shouldn't last more then a day, so unless they do the same op every day, the effects will be short-lived. And if they do these ops every day, you can prepare for them. And if you can't deal with it even with preparation, you shouldn't be holding space.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always have the best intentions for others ...
Billy Colorado
Evasion Gaming
#18 - 2011-10-18 21:33:21 UTC
Anything that incentivizes, catalyzes, encourages small gang warfare should be looked at by CCP as a great idea.